Unusual WW II German Training Film Men Against Tanks or Männer gegen Panzer

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Unusual WW II German Training Film Men Against Tanks or Männer gegen Panzer

During WW II the Germans experimented with trying to make their training films as realistic as possible..

This 1943 training film shows the German ground soldier how to take out tanks with hand held weapons.
This movie used and destroyed captured Russian & French equipment and was made so well that this film was also used in
Nato training after the WW II because Nato troops were facing the same types of tanks.

The German solder with the 4 tank kill badges on his arm, who takes out the Russian KV-1, in the end of the 1st part is Wilhelm Niggenmeyer.
He will go on to serve in the German army after the war.

The film captures a lot of mistakes as well as "approved" up close and personnel tanks destruction techniques. Also it shows
the hand held tank destruction weapons at the time in use.

Cool video! Btw. Even in 1980, when serving in the German army, I still trained how to stop a tank with a flash grenade (shot out of something that looked like a pirate's pistol) with the intent to blind the driver as they had mirrors for orientation purposes all over the tank... and then followed up by a armor piercing grenade. Was fun training it, but I highly doubt that this actually would have stopped any tank to begin with.

First I enjoyed seeing the early model T 34 B used in so many of the demonstrations.
You see T 34/85 all the time, rarely do you see the B in such detail. I had never seen it's track close up like this film showed it crossing the trench. You can see just how wide it was
Seeing the big KV 1 up close was also interesting, you could see it's tracks droop as it moved.

Many of the German weapons I had not seen before such as the Combat Pistol L 42 point 24.40
or that recoiless rifle looking crew served weapon used near the end of the reel. point 25.21
What aircraft were used as mock up for Soviet aircraft? point 3.41
They looked almost like U.S. Texan trainers. Did Germany have a similar aircraft?

The English subtitles look very old, was this used by 1950's NATO or post war American,Commonwealth troops in the late 1940's?

Thanks

Last edited by Norton; 03-10-2018 at 08:49 AM.

We thought about it for a long time, "Endeavor to persevere." And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union

First I enjoyed seeing the early model T 34 B used in so many of the demonstrations.
You see T 34/85 all the time, rarely do you see the B in such detail. I had never seen it's track close up like this film showed it crossing the trench. You can see just how wide it was
Seeing the big KV 1 up close was also interesting, you could see it's tracks droop as it moved.

Many of the German weapons I had not seen before such as the Combat Pistol L 42 point 24.40
or that recoiless rifle looking crew served weapon used near the end of the reel. point 25.21
What aircraft were used as mock up for Soviet aircraft? point 3.41
They looked almost like U.S. Texan trainers. Did Germany have a similar aircraft?

The English subtitles look very old, was this used by 1950's NATO or post war American,Commonwealth troops in the late 1940's?

Thanks

For me the thing that threw me was seeing those small arms ports in the sides of the turrets.... I just never saw them in use before..

Those planes were T-6s the Germans captured in France.

Per some of those weapons. This is 1943 when it was filmed.. those anti tank weapons were in development.. Some were not fully developed..